


The Passing of Antoinette Giry

by Arya_Durin_51



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Antoinette still loves her dumbass murderous son, F/M, I like making people cry, I may hav been listening to Hadestown when writing this, Ramin is the best Phantom, Still can't tag for shit, if you're wondering which Phantom: it's Raging Kazoo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-12 23:37:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20164510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arya_Durin_51/pseuds/Arya_Durin_51
Summary: The last moments of the feared ballet mistress with her eldest child.





	The Passing of Antoinette Giry

* * *

If you had told Madame Giry that Erik, of all people, would be feeding her soup on her sickbed (and deathbed, but he needn’t know that as of yet), she would have laughed at your face, and might even smack you with her cane, to rid you of your delusions. Yet here she was, sick with a bout of pneumonia she would not recover from, with Erik – sans coat and mask – feeding her the aforementioned soup so she could take her medicine. With their favourite mop of blond curls absent from the Opera House, training in Moscow with the Bolshoi, the two dark permanent presences of the Palais Garnier had to look after each other.

Truth be told, she had not expected it to go this far. It had started with a cough and some fever, nothing that had not happened before. It persisted though, and Erik insisted on a doctor – or four – to look into it. After many rounds of medicine, the cough started leaving her only now, three months later. Erik was sure she would recover her strength before Meg’s return the following week. She knew better.

* * *

Antoinette’s coughing fit was what woke him up from his uncomfortable sleep on the uncomfortable armchair in her rooms. If Erik was being honest, it wasn’t the armchair that was uncomfortable, but rather the fact that he was no longer an underfed eleven-year-old, but a grown man of thirty five that stood at 1,87. So he untangled his long limbs, moved the book from his chest, set it on the small table, and rushed to her side, helping her sit up; she stopped him.

“Antoinette?” He was puzzled at her behaviour, but he fell silent and set her on the bed again with a gesture of her hand, for even the famed Opera Ghost knew not to antagonise his box-keeper.

“Leave it, Erik,” she rasped out. “There’s no use; I’ll be dead before dawn breaks.”

“Cease this nonsense, old crow,” he scoffed. It was a notion he had kept from his childhood, in which Antoinette would never age, nor die. When he returned from Persia, she had aged, and now she was dying. “You’ll be fine. Marg- Meg is coming in the morning, and-“

“-and I won’t be seeing her.” She grasped his hand tightly. “It’s no use, Erik. I was not meant to make it through this one.”

“You’re wrong,” he said forcefully. He slid from his seat on the bad to the floor, on his knees, in order to be eye-level with her. “For once, you’re wrong. Your daughter is coming in the morning, and you will be up and there to greet her at the gate.”

“It’s 1884. You still have time to make good on the promise you gave me all those years ago.” _1885: Meg Giry, Empress._

“And I will, I will! When have I not kept a promise, for better or for worse?” _If these demands are not met, a disaster beyond your imagination will occur! _“I made a promise to you, and I shall keep it, but you have to be there too!” _There are worse things than a shattered chandelier!_

She smiled at him, a smile he had not seen since he had woken up in that armchair as a child. “No need for me to be there, my dear Phantom. Just name one of the little ones after me, and I will see her as your Empress. Who knows, maybe _I _shall become the Phantom of the Opera,” she chuckled at the last part, but Erik was speechless.

Apparently, his feelings for Marguerite, his dearest Prima Ballerina who was nothing like her namesake from his favourite opera, growing from that of a disgruntled friend to her beau, had not gone as unnoticed by her mother as he had hoped. Maybe the fact that he smiled like a child when he received her letters gave him away, or maybe all the ballets he had composed in her absence.

It took him a few seconds to gather himself and speak: “What kind of Empress in a lair under the ground?” The spectre of Christine Daaé was with them for a moment, or so he thought. He learned the hard way that flowers do not bloom in darkness, and were not satisfied with the music of the night.

“Yours,” she answered simply, and truthfully. Was Hades not an emperor in his own right? And if it meant his Marguerite would not stay with him always, he would withstand it for her sake, knowing she would return to him next fall. “You shall make each other happy, this I know.” Her eyes started drooping and her grip on his hand weakening.

“No, Antoinette,” he pleaded with her to no avail. “Don’t you dare,” he seethed at her with venom in his voice, clasping her hand in both of his tightly. The smile she gave him felt like a blow to his weakening walls around his heart. He felt a knot in his throat. “No, No! Antoinette, no, you can’t!” His eyes were burning and he bit his lip to stop it from trembling to no avail. “No, Antoinette, no! Please... Maman, please!” He closed his eyes tightly, feeling the tears roll down his cheeks. He brought her knuckles to his lips, and the rested them on his chin. “You can’t, maman! Not yet, maman, you can’t leave me just yet! You must never leave me! Maman!”

“Don’t abandon me,” he whispered, but her eyes were already closed, and her hand went slack, and cold.

* * *


End file.
